The Crooked Kind
by NeverMineToHold
Summary: Q would never have predicted that he would become the reason for 007 to fight his way back home with nail and tooth instead of simply rolling over. Whenever he thought of it his lips curled in distaste, like over Earl Grey gone cold or a pen out of place on his desk. He was not flattered nor terrified and far from charmed. Or: How Q is supposed to lie back and think of England...


Title: "The Crooked Kind"

Status: WIP

Fandom: James Bond (Movieverse)

Pairing(s)/Character(s): James Bond/Q; M, Moneypenny, Tanner, minor OCs

Disclaimer: The James Bond Franchise belongs to MGM and Ian Fleming, not mine, no claim.

Rating: M

Genre: Alternate Character Interpretation, Grey and Gray Morality, post-Skyfall, H/C, angst, slash

Warnings: unbeta'ed, torture, violence, amoral!Q, language

Summary: Q would never have predicted that he would become the reason for 007 to fight his way back home with nail and tooth instead of simply rolling over. Whenever he thought of it his lips curled in distaste, like over Earl Grey gone cold or a pen out of place on his desk. He was not flattered nor terrified and far from charmed. Or: How Q is supposed to lie back and think of England...

Note: I have not seen 'Skyfall' (yet); this is based on the 'Quartermaster Clip' from YouTube and my muse's alternative character interpretation.

The Crooked Kind

Q would never have predicted that he would become the reason for 007 to fight his way back home with nail and tooth instead of simply rolling over. Whenever he thought of it his lips curled in distaste, like over Earl Grey gone cold or a pen out of place on his desk.

He was not flattered nor terrified and far from charmed. In fact he did not bother to make the attempt and identify his feelings on the matter, because he had none. Code was beauty and logic incarnate, humans were flawed and nothing but a disappointment. The course of his own life had taught Q that, driven the point home relentlessly, in pain and blood and people trusted not-there as soon as he turned his back.

The sky outside darkened, rain pouring on London's streets with thunder rolling in the distance. At least the weather was empathetic, because Q was not.

XXX

_The office was bland, like most inside MI6's new HQ. A simple rectangle of eggshell white walls with potted plants dying in one corner and a print framed by cheap plastic adding a speckle of colour._

_The psychologist was sitting behind her desk, the scent of her coffee everywhere, mixing with the obnoxious perfume she had chosen to wear. She was flipping through a file, one eye on Q, sitting before her on a chair so hard that it wouldn't instil anyone sane with the desire to make confidential confessions._

"_You know why you are here?"_

_Q could make an educated guess, based on a certain double-oh agent's __aberrant__ behaviour. He pushed his glasses up his nose, knowing she would consider it a tell; nervousness, young genius, always trying to be composed and in control, only really not._

"_Please enlighten me."_

"_007 has become unstable, displaying all symptoms of PTSD while resisting any and all attempts at therapy. He has instead chosen to seek your company."_

_Q thought his part about that and shrugged, "So he does, after his recent trauma. - And?"_

_Her lips thinned, pinched and she scribbled something on a sheet of paper before stating, "You have tried to avoid him."_

"_I cannot say that I enjoy 007's company as of late."_

_She pounced on that, how predictable. "So you blame yourself?"_

"_For the mission's failure? Him being captured and tortured? I do not think I can be held responsible when the agent I am supposed to handle chooses to ignore my advice, to say nothing of outright orders."_

"_Does he blame you?"_

_Q lifted an eyebrow, his lips hinting at a smile just so, "He thanked me. I found him, after all."_

_She scribbled some more. It might well be worth his time to hack those files later. Information made the world __go round__, after all, and nowadays nothing remained on paper._

"_Your behaviour is starting to aggravate Bond to a degree that turns him from an asset into a liability. M still considers him worth keeping."_

"_Oh please," Q said and sniffed in open disdain, sure of his own usefulness in the scheme of things, at least for the time being. "M thinks that Bond is perfect to send on as many suicide missions as it takes to get him killed. Permanently, might I add. Cannon fodder, the last repayment for the investment it took to train a special agent of 007's quality."_

_Q waited, but of course she didn't deny it, nor confirmed what he already knew. He had read the files, knew about what would soon go down in Asia._

"_Be that as it may, we would like you to accommodate Bond."_

"_Accommodate him," Q repeated, tasting the word, stretching it. It made him think of tea brought to his desk, Bond's aftershave in his nose and those strong hands manhandling his drunken admirer from the bar. "That can mean a great deal of things."_

"_Yes."_

_The moment grew tense as they stared at each other, as if the silence needed to find an outlet, as if he was expected to jump up and yell, or blush like a virgin. Of course Q did neither. He had learned early on to take any curve ball life might throw his way in stride, to adapt, until it had become as natural as breathing to have a mask for every occasion._

_His 'Q' persona, for example._

_As 'Q' he indulged in some nerdy quirks and eccentricities, painting himself as a young computer geek to appear harmless, insecure in his newly acquired position, and all the more determined because of it. He allowed others to work their angles on him, as long as it did neither erode his perceived competency nor undermine his career – he rather liked the toys he got to play with as MI6's quartermaster._

_That persona made him seem predictable and he took great pride in fooling even seasoned agents like M or this psychologist, with his sharp tongue and pretentiousness, the cardigans and his Scrabble mug._

_It was not only a game, though. MI6 had no scruples, willing to do everything for Queen and country, and signing their contract was as good as handing ones life over, for them to use as they pleased. It meant to follow their instructions or being disposed of, and all England's good citizens would ever know of this was the information fed to them on MI6's friendly looking website._

"_Q. We need an answer."_

_Regular interaction with Bond would require serious effort on Q's part and tax his acting skills, no doubt, but he wasn't known for backing down when faced with a challenge. This one held a potential for violence and death, which might add to the dubious 'fun'._

"_Well," he said and stood to leave, smoothing out his cardigan on the way to the door. "I suppose 'accommodating' a man like James Bond is not too much of a sacrifice."_

XXX

"007, respond!"

Shots fired in a confined space made the speakers whine with feedback and Q flinch. The crunch of gravel and crack of bones was transmitted, underlaid by heavy panting; then silence. The red dot on the screen ceased to move as if caught in the maze of blue lines and green squares, representing the streets and buildings of Hong Kong's Victoria harbour.

"007, status report!"

The whole of Q-branch seemed to wait with baited breath for any sign that 007 had come out on top, but the signal died, stuttering to a beeping stop like a human heart, until only white noise was left. - The GPS tracker had been removed from Bond's shoulder.

"Make the call," Q said to the room at large.

He was already occupied with accessing the security cameras closest to Bond's last known location and pulled up their video feeds. The firewalls the Kwai Chung Container Terminals had in place were laughable.

"Yes, sir," one intern said, voice shaking; still innocent in ways that had no place in MI6's gritty reality. "Sir, we have a Code Nine; agent down."

XXX

Q did not care for Bond's fate.

Specifically: no more or less than that of any other human being, but he had certain expectation's to live up to, and he took pride in achieving with lines of code and fingers flying over his keyboard what agents out in the field could not.

Nevertheless two weeks had passed. M had declared 007 KIA, at least officially. If Bond was still alive, Q concluded, it was only due to the fact that he had provided excellent entertainment for the men that had captured him. Breaking such a fine specimen, cracking the false construct open to get to the man inside – Q was sure it had its appeal. After Silva and the recent accident in Russia it wouldn't take much, thus his charming conversation with MI6's lead psychologist.

Reporting his findings - a location, a map, some grainy shots - Q packed up for the day and left for his flat. His eyes burned from the strain of staring at the screens, there was no need for him to oversee the operation. The team would go in and come out with Bond, on a stretcher or in a body bag.

It rained again that night and the moon shone with a hue of red. Q had no trouble sleeping.

XXX

"Silva again," M ground out between clenched teeth. "I want a full analysis."

He handed Q the HDD the retrieval team had secured before the whole place had gone up in flames.

"Yes, sir."

Q waited for Mallory to leave, then signalled his assistant and secluded himself in his small office cubicle. Q disconnected one of his own laptops from the MI6 servers, using it as a closed system, and initiated one of his search programs.

He found the video file immediately, no encryption at all - bloody amateurs.

Thirty minutes of torture, cobbled together hastily with Windows Movie Maker, of all things. The image quality varied, some close-ups were razor sharp, catching each drop of blood, while the rest was grainy. Q could tell that one impromptu camera man had enjoyed his job a great deal, while the other had had trouble watching.

Bond's capturer's had very likely meant to distribute it online, to show certain organizations how under their tender care MI6's finest had been reduced to silent heaving that could have been sobs or hysterical giggling.

They had skipped over the part where Bond must have sat impassively on the chair they had tied him to, not moving an inch, giving them nothing but infuriating comments for days, despite being naked and all they tried to elicit a reaction. Instead they had focused on an endless rotation of drugs and beatings, electrocution and humiliation, painted in red blood, yellow piss and milky streaks that ran down split lips; narrowly missing clouded eyes.

Q watched it all, unmoved - he knew what humans could do to each other, had the marks to prove it. He sipped cold tea from his mug, feeling the curious glances from his staff through the office's glass front.

In the video, Bond became lucid again, the drug cocktail wearing off; sweat soaked and chest heaving. He saw the come and gone flicker of emotions on that stony face, too many blending together to be sure of any single one, and then Q noticed how the agents mouth began to move.

Lip reading was 40 % knowledge and 60 % guesswork, especially with a video, but he recognized prime numbers and the periodic table, pressure points and the names of human bones.

That was at the beginning, though, and the new found composure and smooth back talking couldn't last, not through weeks of torture passing in quick motion for the viewer. Not with Silva's men having had access to the stolen files.

They chose Bond's weakness well: sentimentality. Both the old M and 007 had always despised that notion, fooling themselves to be above it, yet had never gotten around to shaking it.

Bringing up Vesper was expertly done, the last name in a long list of people Bond knew to have failed. Q could see how mentioning her cut to the quick. For a man who professed to never have loved Bond had done so more deeply than most, especially considering his background and career.

At some point in the past Commander James Bond had ceased to belong to England, had come out of his protective shell and become hers, and Q realized how much her death had shaped 007.

Interesting...

He found himself dismissing this new insight rather quickly, though, too fascinated by the turn of events. Because now, when Bond had clawed his way back to consciousness through a fog of pain and drugs, he looked utterly lost. Blank, as if struggling to remember why he bothered holding on. He seemed to focus inward then, maybe searching for any incentive left to go on - and Bond's lips shaped a single letter.

Q hit space to pause the video and sank down deeper into his office chair, index finger tapping his lower lip. Maybe, just maybe...

Being the only option someone had left, a replacement, might not have been as flattering as genuine interest, but Q certainly saw a new potential to this extracurricular assignment of his...

XXX

It took half an hour for the internal alarm to subside, yet Q-branch remained oblivious of the emergency until the security team came in to be outfitted with tranquillizer guns on M's orders.

Q send someone to storage, distracted by the files the HDD from Hong Kong had yielded, and ignored the whole event. That is, until he heard that Bond had been the trigger, at which point he excused himself and pulled up the medical file and camera feed in the privacy of his office.

The video showed one of the intensive care rooms down in medical, with Bond a still shape under the covers, surrounded by medical equipment and hooked up to an IV. Q could see the dark shadows under his closed eyes, their rapid movement, the cuts and bruises. 007 looked haggard, older.

He skipped forward. A young nurse came in, like clockwork every ten minutes. She checked on the drip and the monitors and administered more drugs as Bond's chart demanded. She seemed nervous, constantly glancing to the bed and Q did not blame her; in fact he was wondering who had had the bright idea to leave 007 unrestrained.

It happened at the start of her next circuit through the room: as the petite brunette had to lean close to the bed, Bond's eyes snapped open and his hand shot out, closing around her throat. It might have been reflex or training, but she reacted with a quick jab, hitting Bond's bruised ribs with her elbow.

He let her go with a grunt and she stumbled back, already calling for help on her radio. That short moment of distraction was enough for Bond to get out of the bed on unsteady feet. He ripped the IV out and – threw something, hitting camera # 15.

Q snorted and switched to # 14 and its view of the corridor. The camera's microphone picked up on the struggle inside, then a heart monitor came sailing through the tinted glass front. Shards spilled on the white tiles and the nurse tried to escape, but Bond tripped her; in the end, they both landed on the ground.

007 straddled her, fingers digging deep into the soft skin of her throat, knuckles bruised and bloody, like her lips. Bond looked as vicious and scared as any cornered animal. He was so focused on the hapless nurse that he went against his training and ignored the movement he must have seen out of the corner of his eye. - The security detail had arrived.

"And there is my tranquillizer dart," Q murmured, watching as Bond's eyes rolled back.

He switched the computer off and adjusted his glasses. Living his life second hand through camera lenses and lines of code had its appeal, cold, detached and logical, but it seemed time to act if he valued his job.

TBC

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